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Topic: Round 4: Dragon Quest III vs. Final Fantasy III

For this week's "vs" thread I decided to pick two games from two very well known series but probably more of the lesser played games of each games respective series' For FFIII It can be either the Famicom or the DS version. I'm curious to known people's opinions on these two early Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy games especially with both games having the job system in them

Dragon Quest III is one of the most popular games in the series. It can only be considered "among the lesser-played" when it comes to more recent fans of the series.

I think FF III is perfectly charming, but DQ III is the clear winner here. Both games are a little clumsy in their class change systems, but FF's is more fluid and DQ's is more slow-moving. Then when you examine the story (DQ III is one of the most epic tales on the NES, period) and quest design (orbs! vs.... surprise oceans?) DQ pulls ahead.

~Maybe Some Spoilers~

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And then you have the worst part of FF III compared to maybe the best part of DQ III - the endgame. In FF III, you have to complete multiple consecutive dungeons with six bosses in quick succession, with no good save opportunity anywhere in that midst. The bits with Doga, Unei, and Xande are kinda neat, and the "lend us your power" plot point might be a seminal moment for the Final Fantasy series, but it doesn't rescue the FF III endgame from sucking. It's archaic and dumb and only masochists and oldschool-elists defend it.

Dragon Quest III has a hella-cool final sequence of events: traveling to the world of Dragon Quest I, finding the Sword of Kings, *almost* rescuing your missing father before defeating Zoma, and making the connection that you are Loto the Hero. Every part of it is awesome, and Zoma is one of the more badass Maou / Archfiends in the series.

~End Spoilers~

So, bottom line, after going on for WAY too long, Dragon Quest III is way better than Final Fantasy III. it wasn't until the SFamicom/SNES games where Final Fantasy has a title run superior to Dragon Quest's games of the same period.

I'll give credit where credit's due and state that Famicom FFIII was probably the bigger quest, more classes/jobs, and made more clever use of its sideplots to highlight said jobs and the different ways one can influence your party. And I don't care what anyone says, I still perfer the D&D spell level idea over universal MP.

But with that said, it also has way too many speed bumps compared to DQIII (i.e. Salamander, Garuda, Doga's Manor, The Cave of the Ancients, The Cave of Darkness, and all four parts of the endgame versus the Pyramid and the Orb hunt). And then there's the redundancy between jobs where you had crap like the third crystal giving out seven classes (Dark Knight, Dragoon, Viking, Karateka, Geomancer, Conjurer, and Bard) three of which are gimmicks and four of which are fighters with gimmicks and forcing you to continue to lean on that White Wizard you made way back at the start of the game until you hit the first of the four endgame dungeons where you finally get its upgrade Shaman, along with the Black Wizard's equivalent, Warlock which is also completely redundant because you also get the Conjurer in non-shitty mode, Summoner; whereas in DQIII you get your main character who's exclusively the Hero class, and seven others including two different varieties of fighters and two different mages plus an unlockable supermage after suffering through one of the game's two gimmick classes, the other of which is actually semi-competent.

And then there's the remakes where DQIII gets better and FFIII gets worse.

Because seriously, who thought it was a good idea to turn a mostly linear class/job upgrade system into a not even half-assed specialty system? Nerfing Sage and Shaman to give White Wizard a not even a remote chance to not be underpowered crap isn't balance, its moronic. And all that making Summoner be the only non crap summon using class in the game just means that you don't need to blow an 8th level spell slot on Bahamut for your one Sage since the other one's going to be a Shaman since they don't have crap for high level spell charge totals. Meanwhile Warlock is still entirely useless since Sages can still use Flare and Shamans can still use Holy. And then there's the physical jobs but instead of it being use Fighter til Knight then Dragoon/Karateka until Dark Knights stop being useless then go with that until suddenly Ninjas now its the same until you hit Dark Knight then never stop using them as they are now better than everything until Onion Kids become viable (Ninjas hit harder than Dark Knights but are made out of paper in response and the extra 'dungeon' is nothing but Dragons which makes farming for Onion Equipment actually feasible). The only good thing to come out of that crap DS remake was making the Cave of the Ancients less of a bitch.

I honestly don't have much to say on DQIII because it may be an oldie but its still a goodie and straight up classic JRPG design. FFIII meanwhile is still as NES Hard as the other two FFs but it was finally showing some of the cleverness that let the series take the lead for the next two console generations before devolving into the corridor simulator that it is today.